10 Virtual Event Engagement Ideas to Win Over Attendees

Do you know that virtual events have the potential to generate nearly one-third of the revenue that physical or face-to-face events generate (for a fraction of the cost)? When executed well, virtual events offer a clear value proposition, despite being perceived by some as a “forced evolution” for the massive event industry. 

Whether you’re hosting a conference, expo, job fair, open day, or internal meeting, failing to keep them engaged will result in early log-outs. A lot of the event content that you put your heart and soul into will just go to waste if people don’t stick around long enough. 

Virtual events might offer more opportunities to “zone out” as compared to in-person meetings and events. This is because attendees are already on the computer for a long time and distraction is only a single click away. How do you keep attendees engaged during an event when the attention comes at a premium? To save your attendees from just staring at a screen, all you need is a little creativity. 

10 Virtual Event Engagement Ideas

To overcome this dilemma, we’ve compiled a list of 10 virtual event engagement ideas that’ll help you keep your attendees hooked. 

1. Engage Your Audience On Social Media Feed

You can engage your attendees with the help of social media. Simply engage by making them a tweet and see it show up right there in the event using our live social media feed feature. In this way, you will be able to track event hashtags, collect user-generated content, and attendees can even connect with each other.

2. Try Hosting Trivia and Quizzes

With the help of in-event trivia and quizzes, you can add an interesting element of competition to your event. You can set up questions and quiz your attendees on topics they’re interested in. This idea is great for industry-related topics. It’s great as an icebreaker to connect like-minded people and it also helps create engagement during a webinar. 

3. Excite Your Audience With A Virtual Photo Booth

Let the love for photos thrive! Another great idea to excite your attendees is providing them with a virtual photo booth. You can engage them better by creating branded photo templates and offering filters. The virtual phone booth will let your audience save and share photos, offering a unique keepsake from your event.

4. Create A Memorable Signature Wall

Another cool idea is to create a memorable signature wall. The wall will have your attendees’ signatures on it. Apart from signs, they can also leave a note or share their experience about the event. Simply make it a virtual memory wall to provide a unique element for engagement. 

5. Create Break Out Rooms

You can also consider creating breakout rooms within your Zoom webinars. Also, you can assign each attendee to a specific room. As a result, this will create better networking opportunities, act as the best ice breakers, brainstorm your audience on industry topics, and the list goes on. You can create the break-out rooms at the start or end of the event, as needed. 

6. Try Out Personalized Avatars

For an exciting touch of entertainment, to engage your attendees, you can create lookalike avatars. These personalized avatars will further create engagement among all stakeholders which includes attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors. These personalized avatars can be created anywhere in the virtual platform such as Hall, Lobby, Auditorium, Lounge, and some more spots. 

7. Conduct Live Q&A

Another one of the best virtual event engagement ideas is to let your attendees interact with the speaker. You can host virtual Q&As for the sake of interaction. Select a person to monitor and pick questions and you can later choose to answer the raised questions in a dedicated Q&A session soon after the presentation.

8. Create A Leaderboard

With the help of a leaderboard, you can easily incentivize your attendees’ behavior by assigning them points. These points will be based on any activity they performed within the platform such as keynote sessions, webinars, sponsor booths/exhibitor stands, filling up a survey, chat conversion, and the list goes on. 

9. Host a Contest

Contests are one of the most unique virtual event engagement ideas. All you need to do is consider the specifics and a gift or anything more to host an ideal contest. It can be a simple user-generated content idea such as asking your attendees to share their pictures or pictures of their settings while attending your virtual conference. Also, you can ask questions, create engaging polls, or anything relevant to such options. 

10. Simulate a Networking Lounge

You can also bring networking lounges to the virtual realm. vFairs’ Spatial Connect feature simulates an event networking lounge with virtual event platforms to simulate an actual networking lounge. In these environments, your avatars can walk up to other people, tune in to their conversations, and make meaningful connections.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, it’s not that attendees don’t want to be at your virtual event, it’s that they’re not feeling engaged and connected with your virtual event. Increasing opportunities for engagement will benefit both you and your attendees in the end. Thinking out of the box and offering fun and valuable activities is your golden ticket.